


See You Around

by acercrea



Series: The Long Way Home [2]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:16:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4295580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acercrea/pseuds/acercrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco and Erik spent one night together and Erik left before Marco could wake up. Is there any thing that can make up for that?</p>
            </blockquote>





	See You Around

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is the second part of I’m Sorry. There was a lot of demand for me to continue that story, but I am going to post it as a stand-alone out of respect for the person who requested that fic.  
> Disclaimer: I don’t own anything you recognize. This is just for fun.

I was successfully able to avoid Erik for the rest of the international break, due in large part to some welcome interference from Sven. I kept telling myself that all I had to do is get through the next week and I wouldn’t have to see him for a month. I didn’t know what I was going to do after that, but I had a month to figure it out.

So when I arrived back from the airport and saw him sitting on my steps I was so surprised I stopped dead and dropped my suitcase. We stayed that way for a full minute, him not saying anything, me too stunned to move.

“I’m not leaving until you hear me out,” Erik finally spoke, shattering me out of my shock.

I turned around and got back into my car. I dialed a number and put the phone on speaker before I backed out of my driveway and out on to the road.

“Sven,” the midfielder answered groggily.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t wake you did I?” I asked, remembering absently that Sven usually doesn’t sleep on planes or busses.

“Marco? No, it is fine, I was just taking a nap with Abby. You sound upset, is something wrong?” Sven inquired, immediately sounding more alert and attentive.

“I am so sorry to do this to you, but you are the only person who knows enough about this situation to give me advice and I trust you to be unbiased. Erik is on my front steps and I am freaking out. By the way, what does a panic attack feel like, because it kind of feels like an animal is trying to burrow into my heart? That sounds like a panic attack, right?” I asked, my breath starting to come in shallow pants as the pain in my chest that I had been holding at bay for the last 5 days surged and threatened to overwhelm me.

“Ok, I need you to take a couple of deep breaths for me to calm down, can you do that?” Sven requested.

“I’ll try,” I replied, turning down a side street.

“Great. Now, if Erik is on your front steps, where are you? I can’t imagine that you are standing there having a panic attack and talking to me on the phone while he is just staring at you,” Sven pointed out.

“No, I turned around when he started talking and got in my car and I am driving aimlessly around my neighborhood,” I responded, the pain in my chest subsiding as I started to regulate my breathing.

“Ok, pull over before you hit something, you are not in the right frame of mind to be driving a vehicle, and turn on the radio, I will call you back in a couple of minutes,” Sven informed me.

“What?” I asked as I pulled over, realizing I had only made it a block and a half away from my house.

“I am going to ask Erik what he has to tell you. If it was important enough to risk being photographed waiting for you on your doorstep, it might be important, and I am going to need his half of the story before I can give you advice. I’ll call you back soon, just listen to the radio and sit tight,” Sven ordered and hung up the phone.

I sat in the car for ten long minutes, flipping from station to station, trying to find something that didn’t remind me of Erik or this messed up situation, finally giving up when I found a classical station. The song made me feel slightly anxious, but it was way better than anything with words, so I let the song take me on a journey up and down an emotional rollercoaster. I jumped a little as my phone rang in my pocket, and turned off the suddenly triumphant sounding music.

“You need to talk to him,” he told me when I answered.

“What did he say? What could he possibly have said that made you decide I need to forgive him?” I asked.

“I don’t think you need to forgive him at all, nor would I tell you to do that if it was what I thought; that is for you to decide. But I do think you need to hear what he as to say. He has reasons for what he did, reasons I can’t really relate to, but I think maybe you will. I’m not saying what he did was right, in fact I still think it was horrible, but I do understand why he did what he did. I think you should listen to what he has to say because everyone deserves to know why someone did something shitty to them. It is part of the healing process,” Sven pointed out.

“And what happens if I am too broken to heal?” I whispered, half hoping that he wouldn’t hear me.

“Nobody is so broken they can’t be fixed. As long as you want to mend you will. You have plenty of people willing to pick you up, brush you off, and set you back on your feet; but it is up to you to make that first step. Have a good night, Marco. Go talk to him,” Sven gently prodded as he hung up the phone.

I sat there in my car for several minutes, just trying to decide what I was going to do. I was tempted to leave. Just drive somewhere and not return for a couple of days, maybe a week. Head to the airport and pick a random plane. I didn’t need to pack, I could just buy everything when I got there. See if Erik was serious about not leaving my stoop until I had talked to him.

This idea was sounding pretty good until I remembered that my passport was in my bag. Which would mean going back to my house. No matter, driving was still an option. I could go to visit Andre and Montana in Wolfsburg, they have been asking me to come round since they moved back to Germany. But that would mean explaining the situation to them and since they didn’t know I was gay this would mean telling them.  I wasn’t really in the mood for the coming out speech, even though I was pretty sure they would be accepting.

Still not a problem, I could go to some random small village where I won’t be bothered. There was a small village in the south Harz that I went to a few years back on a ski trip that I liked. I could check into the inn and mope for a few days. As depressing as that sounds it does sound better than the alternative and the inn owner was a very lovely woman. I have just made up my mind that that is what I am going to do when I realize that my knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. I remove my right hand to turn the key over and I discover that I am shaking. I am shaking so hard that I can’t turn the key. Driving is out too.

I have to face him. This realization comes slowly and I let it wash over me, pulling me under and threatening to suffocate me. By the time I have accepted my decision I am sure it is the right one. All at once the shaking stops. I am certain that facing him is going to break my heart all over again and destroy what little bit I have managed to build back up. But I have to do it because Sven is right. I deserve to know why. I have to know why. There was never any other choice for me.

I take a deep breath and decide to walk back the short distance to my house. I can come back for my car when I feel more stable.

He is still there when I come back. If he is surprised by my reappearance or the fact that I came back on foot when I left by car he doesn’t show it. I pick up my suitcase as I pass by and very carefully edge past him to the door, making sure I don’t hit him with the bulky object. To his credit, he waits for my permission to come inside when I open the door. The look of relief on his face when I motion him in with a nod fills me with such a longing that I am convinced for a moment that he must be able to hear my heart beating in my chest. But it is too late to waiver in my decision. If this is a mistake it is one I have to make.

I leave my suitcase at the foot of the stairs as he follows me wordlessly into the kitchen and I motion to a chair at the table. As he sits, I busy myself making tea. It is the last way I have to exert control over this situation I feel is going to slip away from me. I am not sure what he is going to say, but at least this way we will both have something to do with our hands while he is saying it.

“I hope peppermint is ok. I don’t know about you but caffeine tends to put me on edge, so I thought it best to go without,” I explain as I set a cup in front of him.

“Probably a good idea,” Erik agrees, taking a tentative sip. He makes a non-committal sound and sets his cup down, avoiding my gaze.

“Something wrong?” I ask, taking a sip of my own tea.

“No, the opposite actually. I keep trying to tell myself that there is no way this will work, but you keep doing little things that surprise me, like making me a perfect cup of tea without having to ask how I take it, that give me hope that I am wrong. That this already works so much better than I think,” he responds with a wry smile.

“So, is that what you have to talk to me about? Do you think there is really anything you could say to me that would make up for that ridiculous letter? For leaving me in that hotel room after I told you that changing your mind after we had sex might kill me? Anything that will make me stop blaming myself for this because I had sex with you when I knew you were drunk and not thinking clearly? Is there anything you could possibly say that will make me stop feeling like all of the air has been sucked out of the room and I am drowning every time you walk in?” I ask, all of the hurt and anger I have been suppressing bubbling to the surface with my words.

“No, there is nothing like that unfortunately. I blame myself probably as much as you blame yourself. But I owe you an explanation and I hope that might be enough to allow us to start to put this behind us and heal the damage I have caused due to my weakness,” he pauses, taking a deep breath and looking down before speaking to his hands. “A lot of people look at me and see something of a golden boy. Talented footballer, eligible young bachelor, from a good family. But all of that is a careful construction to hide who I really am. I have spent years creating the man that most people see, the man that you seem to see through. Basically you make me feel unstable.”

“Unstable how?” I ask, confused by his choice of words and beginning to wonder if I really want him to explain.

He replies in a haunted tone, “You know that I am Catholic, right? Well, when I was 15 my father caught me kissing a boy from school. To say he freaked out about this is an understatement. I am honestly a little surprised the neighbors didn’t call the cops during the entire 2 hours he yelled at me before locking me in my room. The next morning I was at Eden Grove, religious camp for wayward teens; a behavior correction facility where they promise to pray the gay out of your teen, for an exorbitant amount of money. Just don’t ask them how they do it because, as it turns out, it is very difficult to change what feels fundamentally natural to a human being. You have to break that person down. Make them stop trusting their thoughts, their emotions, and everything they believed to be true, not just about themselves, but about the whole world,” he says with a wry smile, his eyes empty and emotionless as his voice.

“When they get you to that point, they start telling you what they feel to be true. It doesn’t matter what you believed before, you start to believe them because it is easier to adopt any ideals than to cling to something they are making sure is now painful. They see you as broken and in need of being fixed, when in fact they are taking someone who is whole, if a little confused, shatter that person and try to reassemble the pieces to resemble what they consider a person to be,” he pauses to take a sip of his tea.

“You are brainwashed, abused, and sometimes they fail completely. Eden Grove has a reputation as a place where nothing is too much in the name of the lord. You are a sinner and you need to be fixed. If you stand in the way of that or if you aren’t progressing in the way they would like you too, you are punished. They starve you, isolate you from everyone else, make you do back breaking physical tasks for hours on end. It is mental and physical torture and the worst part is that everyone knows that they were signed up for it by the very people who are supposed to love them for who they are unconditionally,” he laughs humorlessly, tears glistening in his eyes.

“Because of that there are a lot of people who can’t be put back together once they are shattered. I had 2 roommates during my time there and of the 3 of us only 2 made it home and I count myself lucky to be one of them. I have spent years trying to undo the damage they have done to my mental health. And I am afraid that I haven’t done a very good job of it, despite what my therapist says. I know it doesn’t make anything better, or even different, but for what it is worth, now you know why I did what I did,” he finally finishes, the tears falling silently down his cheeks at this point and I am clasping my hands tightly in my lap to keep from reaching out to wipe them away, the way I did in the hotel.

“No, now I know why you left. Why did you sleep with me in the first place? I know you were drunk, but you told me that it was what you wanted and that you loved me. Why did you do that? Was it just a moment of weakness?” I ask, my voice betraying the emotion his story made me feel. Sven was right, I did need to hear that story, but I have no idea what it means for us. I am not sure that I can forgive him and it does not repair the damage that was done.

“No, that was a moment of strength. Telling you that I love you was the most honest thing I have told anyone in 8 years. Letting my guard down to let you in was the bravest thing I have done in that time. Leaving the next morning was the moment of weakness,” he confesses, looking back up and staring me in the eye.

“Stop telling me that you love me!” I shout, slamming a hand on the table, causing tea to spill from the top of my untouched mug, unshed tears brimming in my eyes now.

“Not saying it doesn’t make it untrue, Marco,” he replies, reaching out to wipe away my tears.

I duck his hand and hastily wipe the wetness from my cheeks. I take a deep breath and say in a low steady voice, “But saying it after what you have done makes me feel like you have plunged your hand through my chest and are trying to rip it out past fragments of bone through a hole that is too small.”

“I am sorry for that. I don’t know if I am capable of being in a relationship with anyone, and I avoid getting close to people because of that. I feel nothing for women and while I find men exquisite I am tortured by my feelings for them. I have tried so hard to keep you at arm’s length and I have failed. I keep remembering how your touch made me feel more alive than I have ever felt in my whole life, you set me on fire and all I have wanted since is more. But I am broken and I don’t know if I can be fixed,” he remarks, reluctantly folding his hands in his lap, a sad look in his eye.

“So where does that leave us? We are co-workers, I have to see you every day and I can’t be near you without feeling my heart seize up in my chest,” I answer, not sure that there is a solution to this problem.

“I am not delusional. I know I have caused a lot of damage, and I am sorrier for that then you will ever know. We will keep our distance at work while we have to. Eventually it will get easier. You and I have never been friends, and I was thinking when it does get easier we could try. My hope is that by the time you are ready to forgive me, I will be ready to let you in. I am not delusional enough to believe it will be easy, but I have hope that the reason I can’t get you out of my head is that you are going to be worth the work,” he says sadly, his hand reaching for my cheek and this time I let him touch me, his hand lingering gently on my face but still causing a rush of heat to the area, my skin burning under his touch the same way it did that night.

“How can you have hope?” I ask.

“Because I know that the connection I feel goes both ways,” he informs me gently, leaning over to kiss my forehead softly.

“Erik?” I question as he pulls back slowly. I can feel him trembling slightly.

“I should go before I do something that makes this harder than it already is,” he answers, not moving back any farther.

“Probably a good idea,” I agree as he finally pulls away.

“I can see myself out, thank you for the tea,” he says simply but there is a weight behind the words. He is thanking me for more than the tea.

“Erik?” I call to his retreating form. When he pauses I continue, “I have hope too.”

“I know you do. I will see you around,” he answered sadly.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is going to be a mini-series, not terribly long, but at least 2 more parts. Let me know what you thought, if you enjoyed it, please leave me kudos, and if you really liked it you can leave me a comment, they really do make my day. Thanks for reading!


End file.
